Development of high energy density primary batteries Final report, 22 Jun. 1965 - 21 Mar. 1967

Spacecraft primary battery containing copper fluoride couple with lithium-chlorine tetraoxide propylene carbonate electrolyte

Suppression of Aflatoxin Production in \u3ci\u3eAspergillus\u3c/i\u3e Species by Selected Peanut (\u3ci\u3eArachis hypogaea\u3c/i\u3e) Stilbenoids

Aspergillus flavus is a soil fungus that commonly invades peanut seeds and often produces carcinogenic aflatoxins. Under favorable conditions, the fungus-challenged peanut plant produces and accumulates resveratrol and its prenylated derivatives in response to such an invasion. These prenylated stilbenoids are considered peanut antifungal phytoalexins. However, the mechanism of peanut−fungus interaction has not been sufficiently studied. We used pure peanut stilbenoids arachidin-1, arachidin-3, and chiricanine A to study their effects on the viability of and metabolite production by several important toxigenic Aspergillus species. Significant reduction or virtually complete suppression of aflatoxin production was revealed in feeding experiments in A. flavus, Aspergillus parasiticus, and Aspergillus nomius. Changes in morphology, spore germination, and growth rate were observed in A. flavus exposed to the selected peanut stilbenoids. Elucidation of the mechanism of aflatoxin suppression by peanut stilbenoids could provide strategies for preventing plant invasion by the fungi that produce aflatoxins

Challenges for standardization of Clostridium difficile typing methods

Typing of Clostridium difficile facilitates understanding of the epidemiology of the infection. Some evaluations have shown that certain strain types (for example, ribotype 027) are more virulent than others and are associated with worse clinical outcomes. Although restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis have been widely used in the past, PCR ribotyping is the current method of choice for typing of C. difficile. However, global standardization of ribotyping results is urgently needed. Whole-genome sequencing of C. difficile has the potential to provide even greater epidemiologic information than ribotyping

Effect of High Phytase Inclusion Rates on Performance of Broilers Fed Diets Not Severely Limited in Available Phosphorus

Phytate is not only an unavailable source of phosphorus (P) for broilers but it also acts as an anti-nutrient, reducing protein and mineral absorption, increasing endogenous losses and reducing broiler performance. The objective of this study was to investigate the anti-nutritional effects of phytate by including high levels of phytase in diets not severely limited in available P. A total of 768 male Arbor Acres broilers were distributed in six treatments of eight replicate pens of 16 birds each consisting of a positive control diet (PC), positive control with 500 FTU/kg phytase, negative control (NC) diet with lower available P and calcium (Ca) levels and the same NC diet with 500, 1,000 or 1,500 FTU/kg phytase. Body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI), feed conversion ratio (FCR) and mortality were determined at 21 and 35 d of age while foot ash was determined in four birds per pen at 21 d of age. FI, FCR and foot ash where not affected by the lower mineral diets at 21 d of age nor by the enzyme inclusion but broilers fed lower Ca and available P diets had lower BWG. At 35 d of age no difference was observed between broilers fed the positive or NC diets but broilers fed 500, 1,000 and 1,500 FTU/kg on top of the NC diet had better FCR than broilers fed the positive control diet. When compared to birds fed a diet adequate in P, birds fed the same diet included with 500, 1,000 and 1,500 FTU/kg of phytase in marginally deficient available P and Ca diets had an improvement of performance. These results support the concept that hydrolysing phytate and reducing the anti-nutritional effects of phytate improves bird performance on marginally deficient diets that were not covering the P requirement of birds

Entanglement quantification from incomplete measurements: Applications using photon-number-resolving weak homodyne detectors

The certificate of success for a number of important quantum information processing protocols, such as entanglement distillation, is based on the difference in the entanglement content of the quantum states before and after the protocol. In such cases, effective bounds need to be placed on the entanglement of non-local states consistent with statistics obtained from local measurements. In this work, we study numerically the ability of a novel type of homodyne detector which combines phase sensitivity and photon-number resolution to set accurate bounds on the entanglement content of two-mode quadrature squeezed states without the need for full state tomography. We show that it is possible to set tight lower bounds on the entanglement of a family of two-mode degaussified states using only a few measurements. This presents a significant improvement over the resource requirements for the experimental demonstration of continuous-variable entanglement distillation, which traditionally relies on full quantum state tomography.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Certified Quantum Random Numbers from Untrusted Light

A remarkable aspect of quantum theory is that certain measurement outcomes are entirely unpredictable to all possible observers. Such quantum events can be harnessed to generate numbers whose randomness is asserted based upon the underlying physical processes. We formally introduce, design and experimentally demonstrate an ultrafast optical quantum random number generator that uses a totally untrusted photonic source. While considering completely general quantum attacks, we certify and generate in real-time random numbers at a rate of 8.05 Gb/s with a rigorous security parameter of 10^(−10). Our security proof is entirely composable, thereby allowing the generated randomness to be utilised for arbitrary applications in cryptography and beyond. To our knowledge, this represents the fastest composably secure source of quantum random numbers ever reported

Stationary optomechanical entanglement between a mechanical oscillator and its measurement apparatus

We provide an argument to infer stationary entanglement between light and a mechanical oscillator based on continuous measurement of light only. We propose an experimentally realizable scheme involving an optomechanical cavity driven by a resonant, continuous-wave field operating in the non-sideband-resolved regime. This corresponds to the conventional configuration of an optomechanical position or force sensor. We show analytically that entanglement between the mechanical oscillator and the output field of the optomechanical cavity can be inferred from the measurement of squeezing in (generalized) Einstein-Podolski-Rosen quadratures of suitable temporal modes of the stationary light field. Squeezing can reach levels of up to 50% of noise reduction below shot noise in the limit of large quantum cooperativity. Remarkably, entanglement persists even in the opposite limit of small cooperativity. Viewing the optomechanical device as a position sensor, entanglement between mechanics and light is an instance of object-apparatus entanglement predicted by quantum measurement theory

Poloidal asymmetries in edge transport barriers

Measurements of impurities in Alcator C-Mod indicate that in the pedestal region, significant poloidal asymmetries can exist in the impurity density, ion temperature, and main ion density. In light of the observation that ion temperature and electrostatic potential are not constant on a flux surface [Theiler et al., Nucl. Fusion 54, 083017 (2014)], a technique based on total pressure conservation to align profiles measured at separate poloidal locations is presented and applied. Gyrokinetic neoclassical simulations with XGCa support the observed large poloidal variations in ion temperature and density, and that the total pressure is approximately constant on a flux surface. With the updated alignment technique, the observed in-out asymmetry in impurity density is reduced from previous publishing [Churchill et al., Nucl. Fusion 53, 122002 (2013)], but remains substantial (nz,H/nz,L∼6). Candidate asymmetry drivers are explored, showing that neither non-uniform impurity sources nor localized fluctuation-driven transport are able to explain satisfactorily the impurity density asymmetry. Since impurity density asymmetries are only present in plasmas with strong electron density gradients, and radial transport timescales become comparable to parallel transport timescales in the pedestal region, it is suggested that global transport effects relating to the strong electron density gradients in the pedestal are the main driver for the pedestal in-out impurity density asymmetry.United States. Department of Energy (DE-FC02-99ER54512)United States. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-06ER54845)United States. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-86ER53223)United States. Department of Energy (DE-AC02-09CH11466